Performance

Performance

The ST700 took two seconds to start up from the moment we powered it on so we doubt you will miss any opportunities due to the camera taking too long to start up. From here on though, we experienced a mix bag of feelings.

One pressing issue was the accuracy its autofocus, which we felt was a hit or miss affair. There were times the camera refused to focus on our subject matter, and ended up focusing on the background or something else. Of course it doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it is an annoyance to be trying to focus on the subject but the camera refuses to do that. Yet another of contention was its on-screen user controls. While easy to understand and use, with everything requiring the use of the rear LCD touchscreen, there are occasions when you might have set the wrong settings by mistake - a common issue with touchscreen interfaces.

We shot most of our photos using the Smart Auto mode, which is what most casual shooters will be using, and found the colors to be pretty washed out, even more so under bright sunlight. The first two pictures below were taken under the bright midday sun using the macro mode. Our findings suggest that the auto white balance didn't seem to do a good job as the colors appeared dull. Picture details were however good.